Thursday, July 20, 2017

BAKER: Did you shoo other people out of the room when you talked to Comey?

TRUMP: No, no.

BAKER: That time [inaudible] [Michael T.] Flynn —

TRUMP: No. That was the other thing. I told people to get out of the room. Why would I do that?

SCHMIDT: Did you actually have a one-on-one with Comey then?

TRUMP: Not much. Not even that I remember. He was sitting, and I don’t remember even talking to him about any of this stuff. He said I asked people to go. Look, you look at his testimony. His testimony is loaded up with lies, O.K.? But people didn’t — we had a couple people that said — Hi baby, how are you?

ARABELLA KUSHNER: [enters room] Hi, Grandpa.

TRUMP: My granddaughter Arabella, who speaks — say hello to them in Chinese.

KUSHNER: Ni hao.

[laughter]

TRUMP: This is Ivanka. You know Ivanka.

IVANKA TRUMP: [from doorway] Hi, how are you? See you later, just wanted to come say hi.

TRUMP: She’s great. She speaks fluent Chinese. She’s amazing.

BAKER: That’s very impressive.

TRUMP: She spoke with President Xi [Jinping of China]. Honey? Can you say a few words in Chinese? Say, like, “I love you, Grandpa” —

KUSHNER: Wo ai ni, Grandpa.

BAKER: That’s great.

TRUMP: She’s unbelievable, huh?

[crosstalk]

TRUMP: Good, smart genes.

His genes.

You know what he thinks about that, right?

Trump has long attributed his wealth and success to his genetic makeup. He told Playboy in 1990 that he is “a strong believer in genes” and that, because his children inherited those genes, they don’t need “adversity” to build skills and character. In 2010, he gave an interview in which he discussed his “breeding” at length and compared himself to a racehorse.

“I’m a gene believer,” he said. “When you connect two racehorses, you usually end up with a fast horse. I had a good gene pool from the stand point of that.”

Trump has also repeatedly cited his uncle, an MIT professor, as proof of his “good genes, very good genes.” He has done this so often that the New Yorker referred to the family connection as Trump’s “sort of eugenic guarantor of intelligence and breeding.”

I know it's probably the most innocuous thing he said in that mind-boggling interview which is going to provide fodder for analysts an historian for hundreds of year. I just thought I'd mention it.

Its also kind of interesting that Ivanka interrupted right at that moment, don't you think?